Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a shared universe created by Marvel Studios, designated as Earth-199999 within Marvel's multiverse system. The universe is comprised mainly by films independently made by Marvel Studios, that are always set within this same universe, much like Marvel has done with their comics.

The universe includes a series of short films, called Marvel One-Shots, launched with each film's Blu-ray release starting with Thor and finishing with Thor: The Dark World. These short films were, however, eventually discontinued.

The franchise also includes a series of tie-in Comics and video games, released as promotional material to the films, all set within the same reality. However, some of them, especially video games, do not match the events featured in other products following their release, and are classified as non-canonical parts of this universe.

Trivia

So far, the released movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have grossed $12,270,519,839 worldwide. It is the first major film franchise to cross the $9 billion and $10 billion marks.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the highest-grossing franchise of all time.

Due to financial difficulties Marvel faced in the past, they had to sell the film rights to several of their characters. Some of these sales are still in effect today, and thus the characters cannot be used in the MCU.[1]

Due to Fox owning the rights to the X-Men franchise, the X-Men films take place in a different universe from the MCU. Fox also owns the film rights to the Fantastic Four.

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch fall under both companies rights, as they are mutants by origin but are heavily associated with The Avengers. Both companies have certain limitations however:

Fox cannot make any reference to the Twins' involvement with the Avengers.

Marvel cannot make any reference to the Twins being mutants, the children of Magneto, or their association with the X-Men.

Similar to the Twins (Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch), the Skrulls film rights have been confirmed by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn to fall under Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox film rights as they are associated with the Fantastic Four, but are an important part of the Marvel Universe and play prominent roles in the Kree-Skrull War and Secret Invasion. As such the Skrull race can be used in the MCU, while some specific Skrulls can't be used because of Fox ownership over them (such as Kl'rt the Super-Skrull).

As of 2017, Marvel has announced that the Skrulls will be the main antagonists of Captain Marvel.

Although they debuted in a Fantastic Four comic, The Watchers have appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 in a post credits scene suggesting both Marvel and Fox share film rights to those characters (as with the case of Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and the Skrulls).

Similarly, Spider-Man's film rights are owned by Sony Pictures Studios, and both the Sam Raimi series and The Amazing Spider-Man series were set separate from the MCU; although after the last movie in the latter franchise, a deal was made between the two companies, resulting in another reboot of the series, this time making it set in the MCU.[2]

The initial indication of an element of cooperation between Sony and Disney was when Sony gave permission for Disney to use the OsCorp Building for a background cameo in The Avengers; however, due to budget and time constraints the idea was abandoned.[3]

Furthermore, Andrew Garfield, the actor who played Spider-Man in the Amazing Spider-Man series, had expressed interest in appearing in an Avengers sequel.

On February 10th 2015, it was announced that Sony and Disney had struck a deal for setting Spider-Man in the MCU. The character, played by Tom Holland, is set to make his first appearance in the MCU in Captain America: Civil War followed by the second reboot of the franchise, a solo film titled Spider-Man: Homecoming which was released on July 7, 2017. Additionally, it was announced that Sony would have full creative control over the character and the franchise whilst setting it in the MCU, allowing characters from other MCU properties to appear in it and vice-versa. Additionally, the planned spin-offs to the franchise by Sony are also reportedly in development,[4] but has since abandoned after The Amazing Spider-Man 3's cancellation.

The cinematic rights to Namor lie with Marvel Studios currently but due to 'older contracts with other parties' it seems they couldn't use them yet.[5]

As of June 2016, the films rights to Namor now lies with Marvel Studios, and can now be used for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The cinematic rights to Man-Thing lie with Marvel Studios, while they originally used to lie with Lionsgate and thus he couldn't be used in the MCU at that time.